Tuesday, August 2, 2016

Telugu
movie Arya released in 2004 had Allu
Arjun in the main lead. The song "Aa Ante Amalapuram" became famous in Andhra Pradesh giving
Allu Arjun an identity. Amalapuram is a town, in East Godavari
district in the state of Andhra Pradesh, 60 km from Rajahmundry city at Konaseema
delta, the triangle formed by the waters of the Godavari River.

I still
remember that night in Feb 1995, when me and my colleagues of Oriental DO
Kakinada travelled in a car. As we were
getting nearer – from a few kilometres
distance itself, I was able to see orange flames leaping above paddy fields –
there were crowds visiting the place – the coconut trees in vicinity were
scorched due to intense heat – someone suggested that one should not be seeing
the flames with naked eyes and everyone was trying to hold dried coconut tree
branches – heat could be felt as we went nearer – the flame was visible from a
distance … it appeared that there was nothing till say 2 feet from the ground –
then there was the flame, like a giant torch ….
There were hoses directing water at the flames (do they use water ? or
was that done to reduce the heat) – but hardly it could go near, it appeared
that the water that went in an arch was vanishing midway, due to the intense
heat……….

I had
in June 2014, posted about the loss of
lives in the GAIL blast killing more than dozen of people in Nagaram village
near Amalapuram in Andhra – the scene described in the first para is what we
saw when a blow-out occurred in Jan 1995 and when Pasaralapudi village near
Amalapuram became a tourist spot. It raged for about 45 days before Niel Adams,
an expert from Russia capped the well.
The KG basin (Krishna Godavari basin) is a proven petroliferous
pericratonic basin formed on the continental passive margin located on the east
coast of India; the basin reportedly contains about 5 km thick sediments with
several cycles of deposition, ranging from Late Carboniferous to Pleistocene age.

In those days (of Mid
1990s) it reportedly was a loss of more than 15 lakhs per day besides crores
worth equipment damaged in the fire and that was at a time when Govt was
actively speaking on disinvestment. It
was blow out internationally spoke about – and certainly not the first nor the
only of its kind. It put East Godavari
on map to people hitherto unknown – at the same time exposing the
unpreparedness of events of such magnitude.
Whether it was gross negligence, faulty equipment, operator failure
(human error), freak accident – none were sure – and there were reports of
intensity flaring up 1 million cubic metres of natural gas a day, which was far
excessive of the targeted flow of the well.

In such intense heat,
the property nearby too suffered – some houses reportedly cracked – for sure
lot of vegetation and many birds suffered.
Even in the recent blast, a newspaper report suggested that hundreds of
birds got killed and many wounded. We
read newspaper reports of an expert Neil
Adams coming and papers were giving details of capping operations, though not
too intelligible to commoners like me. Adams was reportedly a veteran having
put out many such fires in the post-Gulf War Kuwait and elsewhere, still the fire at Pasarlapudi was not to be doused
in a day or two.

Fortunately, there
was no reporting of spewed toxic gases – in India any way there is not much of
tort litigation, which in some other Country would have flared up in high
numbers considering the effect it had on the locality. It was reported that the ONGC took four days
to move equipment to train water jets at the fire, and by the time they started
upping the pressure, the fire was weeks old and had risen more than 100 meters
high.

Read about the
operation that a rig was placed to dig a relief well, into which the mud sludge
was pumped in – and initially there were apprehensions and hurdles from the
villagers on that. The water jets used
cooled the surrounding area allowing the ace fire fighters to move in closer. –
without commenting on the expertise of the operations, one thing was clear – it
affected the villagers paddy fields, coconut trees, and the many shrimp farms
in that area. A small % did some
business selling products to many tourists who turned out to see the flaming torch.

For sure, there are
no comparisons, the present one is a massive blaze reportedly caused by a
leaking gas pipelije explosion, killing people. In that earlier one, though
crores were lost, not many human lives fortunately were. Times have changed –
Firstpost reports that Andhra Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister N Chinarajappa,
District Collector Neetu Prasad and GAIL authorities would distribute a
compensation of Rs 3.80 crore to 19 people who lost their lives in the gas
pipeline blast incident. Rs 20 lakh each
will be given to the family members of the 19 deceased, who lost their lives on
that day and the total amount of compensation will come to Rs 3.80 crore,"
it said, adding that Rs 50,000 each would be paid to 18 people who received
severe burn injuries in the blast and are undergoing treatment at Amalapuram,
Rajahmundry and Kakinada hospitals. The total amount of compensation for
injured people will be Rs 9 lakhs. All payments will made in the form of Demand
Drafts (DD) as directed by the district collector," it said.

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